From a Quick clip to a film — Continue as a film, prompt handoffs and the six recipes

A blank film is the hardest one to start. So Cinema has three doors that are not blank: a Quick clip you already like, a prompt you already wrote, and six recipes with a whole script and a look already written. This guide is the three doors, and what each one carries across.

Door one: Continue as a film

Render a clip in the Video tool — Quick mode, one prompt, one take. If it is the opening shot of something, the result card has a button: Continue as a film.

It opens a new Cinema project with that take as scene one, already rendered. The prompt becomes the scene's action, the camera move and the length come along, the cast too. Nothing is re-rendered and nothing is charged.

The useful part is what travels with the take: its library id. Because scene one has a take, scene two chains from its last frame the moment you render it (continuous shots are on by default) — the film is continuous from the first clip you liked. Write scene two in the Script, set the look to match the engine you rendered on, render.

This is the fastest way to a film that starts well: render Quick takes until one is right, then continue. Quick takes are cheap to iterate — 45 credits for five seconds on Seedance 2.0 Mini — and only the one you keep becomes the spine.

Door two: a prompt

The studio home's prompt box, and the Make a film link in the Video tool's header, hand your text to a new film as scene one's action — unrendered. The model you had selected becomes the film's engine; a duration, a camera move and a cast come along when the page had them.

Use this when you have the idea written and want to write the rest before rendering anything. The film opens in the Script tab with one scene block; add the others, set the look, then render from the Storyboard.

An old /studio/video?mode=film link does the same: it lands in Cinema with the draft as scene one.

Door three: the recipes

On the shelf at /studio/cinema, Start from a recipe lists six. Each one opens as a whole script, written the way Cinema is meant to be used — a brief or a logline, notes and callouts, lists and to-dos for the edit, three scene cards with their sluglines, actions and lines of dialogue — plus a complete look. The film takes the story's name:

• Perfume ad → Amber. Commercial, dreamy, 35mm film, f/1.4, soft cross light, warm film. A macro of the bottle on black marble (push-in), a woman at a vanity mirror (close-up), the bottle among silk ribbons with room for the logo (orbit) — and a narrator's voice-over line in each scene.
• Music video opener → Neon Run. Music video, 1980s, dynamic, vintage anamorphic, neon glow, neon noir. A singer through a neon alley (tracking), at a chrome microphone (close-up), on a rooftop as the camera cranes up — with a look book list, a line from the treatment and a spoken intro.
• Horror teaser → The Visitor. Horror, tense, VHS camcorder, practicals, bleach bypass — and the one recipe shot as a single unbroken take: continuous shots are on, so each scene opens where the last one stopped. A hallway, a living room lit by static, a shape at the window (dolly zoom), and three voices in the dark.
• Streetwear drop → Drop 07. Vertical 9:16 for Reels, TikTok and Shorts; commercial, dynamic, clean sharp lens, contre-jour, candy pop. A beat sheet as a numbered list, then the sneaker (orbit), the walk (tracking) and the splash (close-up), with an announcer's hook line.
• Romance short → Same Book. Romance, calm, soft portrait lens, f/1.4, window light, warm film. A bookshop meet-cute and a café conversation — two-line exchanges in eight-second scenes — then a walk under one umbrella.
• Travel diary → Postcards. Documentary, calm, drone, f/11 deep focus, contre-jour, pastel dawn. A coastline, a night market and a cliff at sunset, stitched together by a narrator.

The speakers are free names — Narrator, Nora, Theo. Turn one into a character and @mention them, and they keep their face from scene to scene; give that character a voice, from the library or imported from your own recording, and they say their lines in it. Replace the product with yours, pick the engine, render.

Recipes are a starting shape, not a template you must keep: rewrite a scene, delete one, add a fourth, change the look. They exist so the first render of a perfume ad looks like a perfume ad.

What comes through each door

	Continue as a film	Prompt handoff	Recipe
Scene one	Rendered take + prompt	Prompt, unrendered	Written, unrendered
Engine	The one you rendered on	The one selected	The default engine
Look	Blank — set it	Blank — set it	The whole rack, the format, continuous shots
Cast / shot / seconds	Carried over	Carried over when set	Shots, seconds and dialogue written
Chains from scene one	Yes, immediately	After scene one renders	Horror teaser only — the others are separate places
Cost to open	0	0	0

A worked session

You want a fifteen-second product film for a launch.

1. Video tool, Quick. "A matte black sneaker on wet concrete at night, neon reflections, slow orbit." Three takes on Kling 3.0, 5 seconds — 510 credits. The second one is right.
2. Continue as a film on that take. Cinema opens; scene one is the orbit.
3. Look. Kling 3.0 is already the engine. Set the rack: Commercial, Dynamic, 35mm film, Clean sharp, f/1.4 wide open, Practicals, Neon noir. Leave continuous shots on.
4. Script. Scene two: "INT. SUBWAY PLATFORM — NIGHT. The sneaker steps off the train, low angle tracking the foot, sparks of neon on the laces." Scene three: "Wide, the wearer walks toward camera, static shot, the platform emptying behind them." Add a title block later in the edit.
5. Storyboard. Render scenes two and three, one take each — 340 credits. They chain from the orbit's last frame.
6. Edit. A crossfade between two and three, a lower-third title with the drop date, music from the bin, a one-second fade out. Export at 1080p, save, publish.

Total renders: 850 credits, of which 340 were Quick takes you did not keep. The film was continuous from the first frame because it started from a take, not a prompt.

FAQ

Does Continue as a film cost anything?

No. The take already exists in your library; the film points at it. You pay for the next scenes when you render them.

Can I continue from a take rendered on another engine than the film's?

Yes — the take is footage. The film's engine (from the look) renders the scenes after it. For the best joins, keep the same engine; for a hard cut, any engine.

Can I turn a recipe into my own?

There is no user-recipe feature yet. Open the recipe, rewrite its scenes and look, and the project on the shelf is yours to keep as a draft — a draft costs nothing.

Where did Film mode's drafts go?

They are on the Cinema shelf as projects, with their scenes and takes intact.

Render a Quick take and look for Continue as a film on the result.